To spend between £6 and £10 on the evening meal

[ShouldiWork]

We can 'afford' it - in the sense that all bills get paid on time etc - but I feel a bit sick when I tot up the months groceries - and I remember when I worked to a £2 per meal budget.

On the other hand - maybe it's what things cost now - and it seems a bit mean to scrimp on food for DH and DC - when the cash is there & DH works hard for it.

Is that per head or for the whole meal. Either way, if you can afford it and enjoy it ten YANBU.

Example breakdowns. All cases feeding six . Often a main course alternative for the vegetarian etc and normally leftovers for me and the preschooler to eat for lunch the next day.

Tonight we're eating spaghetti Bolognese.

£3.50 meat
£1 for 1kg pasta
£ 1 for tinned tomatoes
£1.50 for wine and herbs (pro rata)

Veggienaise from freezer stocks

Yanbu as long as you can afford it. If you think you could make some meals cheaper (less meat?) and put the extra £ to better use then maybe try that. No need to feel bad about feeding your family well!

Were you feeding 6 when you had a £2 meal budget? £6 to £10 for 6 people doesn't sound like a lot to me.

Tomorrow is fajitas. Which I found surprisingly expensive for a snacky supper.

£1.50 wraps
£3.50 chicken
£1.50 branded fajita seasonings
£2.50 refried beans & salsa (needed beans for veggie protein & salsa made up an offer)
£1.50 guacamole
£ 1 frozen veg to bulk out

Makes £11

Unfortunately, meat is soooo expensive nowadays, that the meal you listed above is reasonable, especially when feeding six.

From your headline, I assumed the £6-10 was just the meat element, which may be pricey, apart from sunday roasts etc. However, what you offered is a fairly standard meal.

hibernation - I was feeding 4 - though two were preschoolers and one was largely fed off my bodily excretions .

We ate a lot of lentil based dishes. We still dip into that repertoire sometimes - but obviously it gets very repetitive - and I tend to get guilty about shortchanging DH. Though right now I'm feeling like a gallivanting lady of leisure who is frittering hard earned family money - so I'm glad people think that these spends are normal.

I don't think Yabu but this is also why I eat a few vegetarian meals a week - much cheaper

Is this a stealth boast? 6 - 10 to feed six people is only 1 - 1.67 a head. Sounds good to me.

Oh and that includes vegetarian alternatives and other meals from left overs?

Why are you even asking?

The amount we spent on "groceries" in 2014 was double what we spent in 2009, before DD was born. Even allowing for the fact that her clothes are being lumped in with groceries the amount seems huge to me.

"Groceries" means anything usually bought at a supermarket, not just food.

For two adults and a small child, in 2014 we spend on average £645 a month, i.e. £149 a week, i.e. £21 a day.

Has food gone up or has DW been buying DD diamond shoes?

Bolagnaise (feeds 5 here)
Meat £2.50
Spaghetti 50p
Tinned tomatoes 35p
Purée, herbs etc less than a £
Onion 10p
What ever veg needs using - peppers, mushrooms etx probably about 50p worth.
So less than a fiver in our house.

£1 for tin of tomatoes is quite expensive so I suppose it depends on where and what you buy, if you could shave £2 off each evening meal by buying the next brand down on some things then you cd save £60 a month?
Fajitas are an expensive meal but it's best to look at you overall spend as I would do fajitas but in the Same week do jacket spuds with beans or something else cheap so it all balances out.

In that case you are really not being unreasonable. I think less than £2 a head is good going.

I would be mega happy to only spend that feeding 5 of us. Never was much good at budgeting though :(

I spend £80-100 a week on food etc for 5 of us. We don't eat steAk and caviar but we eat well. I don't see how people do it for £40 a week or whatever on some threads as I buy lots of sainsburys basics and even when I've gone to aldi it's never any cheaper and I still need to go elsewhere to get stuff they don't have.

Fajitas is really expensive! There is only me and DP but here is my breakdown.

£3.33 - chicken (on 3 for £10)
£3 - fajita box
£1 - cheese
£1 - lettuce

Thats around £9 for two of us! And there is always chicken left over as they come in packs of 3 breasts. Would it be tight to only do 2 chicken breast and save the other for something else?

brie it's two tins of whole peeled toms. Normally I go value - but Jamie Oliver persuaded me to upgrade this time!

Even Jacket spuds aren't a bargain.

I tend to buy baking potatoes at £1.50 for 8 spuds.

£1 Tuna tin
£0.50 sweet corn
£0.50 Helmans mayo

£2 cheese (the blighters eat a lot of cheese - this is price of own brand)

£1 coleslaw

£2 green salad veg

Makes £8.50

This is just what life costs, isn't it....

I feed four and my budget for an evening meal is about 5-8 quid so yours sounds about right. I do find buying big joints of meat a bit of a saving. You can often get lamb/ beef in the supermarkets for a fiver a kilo when they're doing a half price thing. Lop some steaks off, cut some into strips for fajitas or stir fry and a big stew with what's left or roast some for sarnies. Satisfies DH who is a meat man and I reckon a tenners worth of beef easily does four days worth of dinners.

You could just
Make the leftover chicken into a Cajun sandwich the next day or save the breast to chop up in a risotto

You can do fajitas with wraps from Aldi/basics (75p) and just read the back of the spice packet to know what spices to put in.

I'd say £6-10 per main meal is fair for 6 people.

I tell DH

" it's really handy that we have such a large household - with the smart pass & the minimum order of £25 we can have a delivery every day of the week!"

Somehow he doesn't seem as delighted with this as me !

Nice spice mix for fahitas (I use this for two large chicken breasts) is:

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tbs oil

1 heaped teaspoon spoon of cumin & same of coriander

1 heaped teaspoon MILD chilli powder (I use the Schwartz one, others may vary).

Mix together & martinate chopped chicken in it.

We spend a lot more on food than we need to, but it's one of the few luxuries we do spend money on so I don't feel guilty. £6 for an evening meal for six sounds very reasonable to me, and £10 is hardly frivolous.

I had a period in my life where I had to count every penny and I was living hand to mouth. It left deep scars and it took me a long time to feel okay about spending money on non-necessities. It gets easier.

We eat off a really low budget and more than £8 odd for a meal for 5 would be giving me palpitations. We eat really well - i only buy reduced meat and fish at 75% off or more and very rarely pay more than 75 % off for vegetables, fruit, cheese. Bread has to be 90% off. I have lots of freezer space. I don't meal plan, we eat round what i got cheap the day before and i have a well stocked larder.

I made a lamb curry for 6 on friday, the meat cost me £1 :)

I looked online for the ingredients for those fajita spice mixes and the best one we found was a tspn each of salt, sugar, garlic powder, cumin and coriander powder, and half a tspn of chilli powder. It's delicious and you can get the bags of spices very cheaply in Indian supermarkets.